Sensors are increasingly used in vehicle applications to help provide useful information associated with vehicle operation. For example, image sensors found in cameras or other image capture devices can be used to capture images of an operating environment surrounding a vehicle. In autonomous vehicles, cameras and other sensors can be used to help determine vehicle position from sensor data identifying various aspects of the vehicle's surroundings. High performance image sensors can capture image data characterized by an increasingly large file size, especially as successive images are stored over time. Local data storage capacities within a vehicle can reach a maximum level relatively quickly when capturing, storing and analyzing such high volumes of image data.